Bands with the worst remastered catalogs. What do you think?

I love CD's and my ears are not attuned to remastered CD's, because to me they sound fine. I am used to it, and unless the production is complete dog sh!t I really do not notice. Hell I am not a sound engineer, so I could tell you what brickwalling is.

Granted most of the music I listen to his old, but the one album I noticed that loudness factor was Metallica's Death Magnetic, it seemed to have no dynamics. I still like the album, but IMO it could have been better if they had paid attention to its sound.

1. MEGADETH

2. MEGADETH

3. MEGADETH



I rest my case

Ok, so I'm a little dense. Here is my question, why on earth would any artist want to do this to their music. What your describing is pretty bad stuff. I get the concept of loud = cool so who's cooler. What I don't get is why spend the money to do it. Many times you hear about the artist or group being involved in the process. You would think that they would want the best representation of their craft. I've read that music is being optimized for the ipod generation and I wonder if the loudness wars is what this is.

I remember being so happy with CD's when they came out because tapes had too many flaws like having to listen through the tape to get to the songs you wanted, stretching and wear among others. LP's faded fast and developed that crackle and skipped at the best parts. CD's just seemed like the best thing ever. Now we find out that we're back where we started and no one has the solution with all the available technology. I've been reading up on turntables and pricing them out and the price range is freakin insane. A 3k + turntable that doesn't include the arm or needle is beyond crazy and that isn't even high end. Not to mention I spend half a day going from place to place looking for a new release CD and I couldn't find the CD let along vinyl. Music sure isn't what it used to be. I want to walk into my local record shop and pick up the album, it that asking too much.

It's called Standards and Practices. In any era, it's always completely dumb.

The theory that the loudness wars is because of the iPod generation is widely stated, but false.

The loudness wars started a good 5 years before the first iPods started to come out. In addition, an overly compressed audio file sounds even worse on a cheap pair of earbuds than it does on a decent stereo system.

Some artists are starting to speak out against the loudness wars and ensure that the released product sounds exactly how they want it to sound (though not nearly enough in my opinion). These are generally artists that aren't dealing with major labels or if they are they have final approval of masters written into their contract (which is extremely rare).

S.D. wrote:

The theory that the loudness wars is because of the iPod generation is widely stated, but false.

The loudness wars started a good 5 years before the first iPods started to come out. In addition, an overly compressed audio file sounds even worse on a cheap pair of earbuds than it does on a decent stereo system.

Some artists are starting to speak out against the loudness wars and ensure that the released product sounds exactly how they want it to sound (though not nearly enough in my opinion). These are generally artists that aren't dealing with major labels or if they are they have final approval of masters written into their contract (which is extremely rare).

I've just bought the vinyl version of the new Horisont LP. 100% Analogue

Just don't forget what I said. Digital Branial Beelzebub. It can happen to you. It can happen to me. It can happen to everyone eventually.

It DID happen to me...except concerning me, it's pronounced "BEEzelbub"; as in 'beetle'.
I'm just strange that way, you understand. Actually, it may just be "Bees'll", and that's all.


Hey, got a question for you guys: I have Loudness's Thunder In The East on CD, and it's the Wounded Bird re-issue. Does anyone know if it's #1, a for-real, legit reissue, and #2, how does it compare to the original pressing? I bought it at my local brick-&-mortar store. Everything about it looks legit, but I'd never heard of Wounded Bird until then. Sounds fine to me too, but I haven't gone beyond just listening to it in the car. DR Database doesn't have anything on the WB release...

Its a legit release, Wounded Bird was like Rock Candy is today, a reissue label, Wounded Bird also released older albums, by Joe Lynn Turner, Fiona and other artist from the 80's.

Cool, thanks... I just hope they didn't tamper with the sound on it. Like I said, it sounds fine in the car, but you've got road noise, etc. interfering with determining the dynamics. I need to bring it up on my computer and check it out.

metalheaded wrote:

Cool, thanks... I just hope they didn't tamper with the sound on it. Like I said, it sounds fine in the car, but you've got road noise, etc. interfering with determining the dynamics. I need to bring it up on my computer and check it out.

Wounded Bird doesn't do any remastering. They just simply reprint the albums.

To the original question. No, because I don't have any multiple version CD's and trying to remember back to when I had the original is pretty darn hard. There isn't any band I like enough to buy multiple pressings of the same material, so I have no way of knowing. I have noticed inconsistencies in some of the CD's I've purchased. The Judas Priest CD's I have all say remastered and seem to be at a higher volume then say my Maiden CD's which by comparison are at a much lower volume level. I switch between the two bands and it blows my ears out if I go from Maiden to Priest.

S.D. wrote:

It is very hard these days to find the best sounding versions of things, at least an affordable way to find the best sounding version. A good rule of thumb is to stick with CDs released prior to 1997, of course that cuts down your options a great deal.

The very early CDs (1985 to 1989 or so) aren't always the best option either, because the record labels were in such a hurry to get everything out on disc they weren't taking the time to find original sources and remaster them specifically for the medium. They'd find an old LP master (that was practically worn out from over-use) and just slap that onto a CD and call it done...and often times the results were far from high quality and sounded worse than the original LPs. Once you got to 1991 and later the A/D converters (analog to digital) were far superior to the ones being used just a few years earlier, CDs started to be mastered in 22bit and then 24bit resolution and the medium started sounding really good. That "sweet spot" from say 1993 to 1996, there are some really fine sounding CDs from that era....but then the labels started the loudness wars and killed off all the advancements they had made with improved technology. As someone that has always been passionate for high quality sound it's really sad, a lost opportunity.

This too is very helpful. I've always tried to buy original CDs and collect on vinyl. I had no idea about the "first-gen" mastering techniques though--or lack thereof. My ear isn't quite as trained as most audiophiles, but I can hear a difference. One example is the recent Screaming for Vengeance anniversary release. I thought it was a competent remaster but learned here that it was the same one already released. However, I did a parallel comparison to my old vinyl and it was quite obvious.

Really want to get my hands on an original Rust in Peace CD.